Lampoon Finds Mark, So Ewu Targets Author

They’ve snapped like overstressed postal workers.

Humor-impaired Eastern Washington University administrators have taken a header off sanity’s short pier.

This supposed institution of free thought has embarked on a bizarre witch hunt to track down and persecute the unknown smart aleck who penned a bogus letter under President Mark Drummond’s name.

“You can be sure I will not sell out Eastern without personal gain for myself,” reads a part of the gag letter. “… I am taking the money and running, baby!”

The letter surfaced on the Cheney campus last Tuesday, hours before Drummond announced his surprise resignation. It looks authentic enough. The document bears the official Eastern logo at the top and Drummond’s signature at the bottom.

The content, however, is obviously not Drummond’s. It is loaded with sarcasm that picks apart some of the president’s well-documented failings:

“I laid off most of our public relations … personnel in 1993 and replaced them with a few political buffoons,” writes faux Drummond in explaining away Eastern’s bad press. “I was thinking no one would notice because we are a state institution and all we have to do is show up.

“At least some of you have to show up because I could not always show up if I was traveling in Asia or Europe, which was most of the time.”

As hilariously on target as it may be, administrative fuddy-duddies at my alma mater aren’t laughing.

On the contrary. They sicced the state Attorney General’s Office on it and ordered campus cops to haul to justice the perpetrator of this high crime.

The FBI, CIA and Daughters of the American Revolution will probably be called next.

Hearing I received a copy of the letter, EWU internal auditor Michael Nelson - one of the principal inquisitors in this nitwittery - wanted to dust it for prints.

What does he think this is, a ransom note?

If only Eastern’s wags spent as much energy improving their programs as they are fretting about this low-level nonsense.

But I guess some excess is understandable. Even the hardiest of souls will crack under pressure, and EWU poobahs lately have been mainlining stress for a variety of reasons:

Merger-happy Washington State University wants to gobble Eastern like a starving wolf after a helpless bunny.

Enrollment has plummeted. Drummond’s reign was a dismal disaster.

He mercifully quit under pressure, but don’t weep for Mark. He gets a one-year $110,000 professional leave. After that, he can return as a well-paid prof or scram for good and collect another $110,000.

Hmm. Maybe he really did write this “take the money and run” letter.

“I wrote no letter,” Drummond says. “I imagine some people are playing games, but I’m not even going to dignify it by getting a copy and reading it. You know Eastern, there are elements that like fun and games.”

No fun is in store for whoever wrote this.

Creative writing normally gets you a good grade at a college, but auditor Nelson says the culprit faces possible termination and legal action.

Maureen McGuire, an assistant state attorney who represents EWU, can’t put her finger on exactly what law was broken, but she’s a smart lawyer. She’ll come up with something.

Perhaps a possible forgery charge. Maybe a violation of a state ethics law. The letter writer, she muses, “used a state document for a purpose outside the scope of their duties.”

Get real, people.

Assault with satire and some missing commas are the only things you can pin on this clever writer. This is political speech. It is opinion, which is protected by the First Amendment.

Give the anonymous author of the Drummond letter a slap on the back, not a kick in the pants.

But don’t worry, pal, they can haul me before a grand jury with Monica’s mother. I’ll never tell.

, DataTimes